


Marius and Tehd Together

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Ableism, Anal Sex, Animal Killed For Food, Arguing, Attempts Were Made At Canon Compliance But Pfft, Canon-Typical Violence, Demon Hunters, Dubious Consent, First Kiss, Forsaken, Hand Jobs, Humor, Kink Meme, M/M, Meet-Cute, Not Beta Read, Not-So-Secret Relationship, Oral Sex, Secret Relationship, Snapshots, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 09:32:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10828527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: Marius and Tehd's mutually annoying adventure.





	Marius and Tehd Together

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the Warcraft kink meme. Prompt was: "This odd couple, their quotes! Tehd: "Now I know you may be asking yourself why a demon hunter and a warlock are so far out here away from the action. But while you are asking yourself that, also ask yourself to be quiet and mind your own business." Look at that! Read it twice! Blizz wants us to ship these two!"
> 
> Relevant trivia: this fill has been in the works for months and months. I feared it was permanently stalled, inspiration drained away, mojo lost, and then Illidan made canon reference to Tehd as "Marius' pet warlock," the wheels spun anew and the train rolled into the station. So, yeah.
> 
> The dubcon here is pretty mild. Warnings for one instance of vomiting and some cannibalism. The vomiting is in passing and not graphic at all. The cannibalism is slightly more graphic but not treated with any seriousness.
> 
> At least four full or partial lines have been taken or adapted from in-game dialogue.
> 
> June 1, 2017: Added a first kiss, because I realized it was missing.

Marius' path lay to the north, but between the torture, the battle, and his long travels northeast through Azsuna, he'd been awake for almost four straight days. As he crouched at the crest of the hill looking down at the burning shapes of the landscape, peppered with the dim outlines of small game and wildlife that would be invisible to anyone else, his shoulders sagged. His destination and his prey were still far away, and he would need to throw himself on the ground somewhere secluded and sleep before he could continue further. He might not even bother with the tent. 

He'd left Haterunner at the foot of the hill and climbed the slope alone to scout the lay of the land. Even given a brief pause, Haterunner had lowered his bulk to the ground. Marius didn't begrudge his steed the rest. Of the two of them, Haterunner had experienced the harder journey, and the beast would rise at once when Marius whistled for him.

Concentrating on focusing far into the distance, Marius could even see clusters of the murlocs Kayn had suggested he avoid. The Illidari were given free rein in much, and the ultimate decision had been his, but Kayn had urged him to skirt the shore the amphibious creatures called their turf, even though going around meant a far longer journey than sneaking straight through their territory.

"Tall, armed, and shirtless, it must be my lucky night."

Marius turned his head, alert in a heartbeat, and annoyed at himself for not noticing an approach until the interloper was already so near. His vision rippled and burned as he beheld the slightly stooped humanoid creature, head to toe alight with traces of fel, with a row of odd horns atop its head, quietly picking its way towards him over the rocky hill. 

The creature temporarily found more even footing and strolled towards him as though they knew each other. "And probably blind and completely obsessive, but alas, no one's perfect."

The creature's aura said it was undead, and with the wind blowing in his direction Marius could strongly smell the putrefaction on it as it neared him. Undead, and not so saturated with the fel as to be identifiable as a demon, but flush with traces of fel magic nonetheless, and... talkative. Marius tensed. All but the most elite undead were mindless, shambling things. Even the intelligent sorts, like death knights, were plodding monsters, certainly not much personality to them. 

This creature seemed nothing short of chatty. "Not too sure about the leather wrap skirt either, but my glass house is a velvet robe, so."

"What are you?" Marius demanded, rising and turning to face it. His instincts, as always, said to kill. He considered slicing the creature in half then and there, but internal demon aside, Marius had always been a cautious sort, disinclined to rush to judgement, and it would be well done to gather information about whatever manner of creature he was dealing with here. Besides, he was not in the best shape to fight, though his hand might be forced in the end.

The dead thing didn't immediately answer him. Sections of the dirt of the hillside were covered in tiny fragments of loose slate, and the creature seemed in momentary danger of losing its footing, its foot sliding a few inches.

"You are no demon," Marius said, antagonized by its lack of response. The row of horns atop its head said it was something, though. Were the spikes a natural weapon? Horns were generally part of the aura encompassed in a creature's outline, so why were this creature's horns dim instead of fel-resonant like the rest of its form? "You're dead. Why are you full of fel magic?"

Marius closed the distance between them with five swift steps--none improperly placed--and seized the surprised creature by the throat. Its skin was cool to the touch, and a section of the flesh _squished_ in his grasp. The experience was so distasteful, Marius almost let go. Almost.

"My, aren't we aggressive," the creature said, and Marius tightened his hold. The flesh and muscle of the creature's neck compressed further under his hand. "That's not good for my neck," the creature croaked.

"What are you?!" Marius shouted.

"I suggest you let go," the creature choked off in a last gasp, and without warning it slammed Marius with a fireball to the side of his face. The attack was so sudden and in such close proximity, Marius had no way to dodge the explosion of heat, and instinctively he reeled back. But either the creature possessed only weak magic or it was holding back, for the surge of aerated flame was shocking and uncomfortable but faded away almost instantly.

His single stunned moment was enough time for the creature to lurch clumsily sideways, uttering a demonic incantation. Marius unleashed a cone of blistering fel devastation from his eye sockets, but the creature stopped the ray of power with a single spread hand, still crying out words of demonic command. Marius lunged for it, warglaives out and arcing down, but the creature's magic seized his whole body mid-leap and sucked him out of the material realm. Marius couldn't move out of the cyclone that engulfed him below the neck. Wholly he was ready to kill, and was now rendered incapable. 

The creature seemed unafraid of him, walking back into range only inches away. Now that it was walking on level ground, Marius could tell the creature had a limp; its left ankle was weak. Marius mentally added that note to the information he would use to efficiently destroy it once he was free. Marius strained against the creature's sorcery, trying with all his might to overcome the sucking winds, to regain his momentum, to slash forward and down and kill the thing for good. Marius managed to shake an arm up and free, nearly decapitating himself in the process but groping with one arm and weapon outside of the reality-bending tornado, baring his teeth and snarling.

The creature made a surprised sound at the fruit of Marius' efforts and enunciated a few more intense words of binding. The churning air around Marius' shoulders and upper arms thickened and tightened, inexorably forcing his fingers open. His glaive tumbled to the Azerothian earth as his arm was pushed down into the cyclone by an invisible force.

An imp tottered over the rise of the hill behind the creature, half-hopping, half-toddling towards them. "Help master?" it queried.

Marius flickered his gaze between the imp and the creature, making the connection.

"Not now, Daglop," the creature said through clenched teeth without looking back, concentrating on its magic. 

"Good, 'cause I'm busy," the imp replied, chortling as it ambled away, back over the crest of the hill and out of sight. 

The creature focused on Marius a little longer, still murmuring to strengthen its dark enchantment.

"Well, then," the creature said at last, when it seemed to feel Marius was sufficiently secure. "Perhaps now we can have a civilized conversation. I am Forsaken. And a warlock, as it happens. You're terribly ill-informed. Have you been living under a rock?"

Marius had no intention of being interrogated, and so he didn't answer.

"Or iced-over in a vault, perhaps? You see, I know very well what _you_ are."

Marius stilled, because the creature knew more about him than he knew about it. A situation Marius needed to rectify. "What is Forsaken?"

"Free-willed undead," the creature explained. "A word of advice: it's not a good idea to attack something if you don't know what it is. You're not particularly bright, are you?"

"You are a fel-eater in league with demons," Marius said coldly.

The creature glanced over its shoulder after the disappeared imp, and in profile, Marius could see the creature's lips shift like it was cracking a smile. "As are you!"

"You are a necromantic perversion." Marius scowled under his mask. "Give me one reason not to kill you where you stand the second I get free."

The creature retreated a few feet and slid down into a sitting position on what looked to be a tree stump. "The best reason would seem to be because we're on the same side?" the creature offered politely. "I'm battling the Legion. You're battling the Legion." The blazing shadow of the creature's arm rose, a finger tapping its chin or lower lip as if inspired. "We should work together."

Marius growled low in his throat.

"Or because I'm almost certain I could enslave you, but haven't tried, how about that? What finer show of goodwill, hmm? Or the most obvious--you're more helpless than a kitten until I decide to free you."

That much seemed to be true.

"I could set you on fire and watch you burn down to the ashes," the creature mused, thoughtful now. "And I haven't. That should count for something, shouldn't it?"

Again Marius fought to swim out of the dense, otherworldly wind currents, but he saw no immediate means of escaping the creature's power. He could barely move. Still, Marius was Illidari. He did not give up easily. Stopping his attempts at kicking and thrashing, he tried to will himself up and out of the cyclone, stretching his legs down as far as he could, seeking a toehold to push up from. But his feet found no purchase. He was trapped a yard above the ground in a void of apparent nothingness.

"It all practically makes us friends," the creature concluded. "I would have left you quite alone if you hadn't forced me to defend myself," it added mildly.

"Don't lecture me, you fel-soaked--thing," Marius snapped. "If I were at my full strength, I would have eviscerated you already."

"Oh?" The creature sounded curious. "Why are you weakened?"

Marius was loathe to confess he'd been captured by the Legion, now that it came to the truth. Being captured by enemies twice in a span of days would shame any committed lifelong warrior. "Prolonged torture," he admitted shortly.

"How unfortunate," the creature said, not unsympathetically. "Though I suppose not for me, if you like to eviscerate first and yell 'what are you' later."

The creature waited, watching him almost earnestly, it seemed, and it made a queer, distinctive clicking noise, Marius wasn't sure how or with what. At last Marius ceased his struggles for good, sighing as he let himself drift and float in the center of the netherstorm. He was beyond exhausted. 

Marius considered the creature's absurd suggestion that they work together. Perhaps the idea wasn't as mad as it seemed. He would be able to surveil the creature at his leisure and make a decision as to whether he should let it live or kill it. He was leaning strongly towards 'kill it.' And if its destruction was the correct course of action, he would be better able to take the creature by surprise after he was rested.

"You truly expect me to believe you're fighting against the Legion," Marius said dubiously.

"What makes you doubt me?"

"I don't trust dead things. Or warlocks."

"Hmph, I'm hearing a lot of bigotry here from the elf who's more demon than elf." The creature shifted its upper limbs, perhaps crossing its arms. "Look at your predicament. I'm this effective against all demons."

"I'm not a demon," Marius gritted out.

"And yet, easy enough to banish."

Arguing with the creature seemed to be pointless. "If I decide you are evil, I will dispose of you by any means necessary," Marius warned.

The rippling outline of the creature's shoulders shrugged. "See the world in rather stark terms, don't you? Black and white, good and evil, even though you're reeking of fel magic yourself. That's hypocrisy, you realize. There's definitely enough demon in you to make you my minion." The creature rose and came nearer, pulling the nether-cyclone down with a hand and peering closer and closer at him until its hazy, strangely proportioned face filled Marius' flickering vision. "I'm sure you'd be my favorite. Daglop would be jealous, though he'd never admit it."

The creature passed what looked to be a fleshless hand in front of his face, then held up a pair of bony fingers, burning and bleeding around the edges as everything did. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Marius didn't answer. The less the creature knew about his abilities, the easier it would be to strike when the time was right.

"I may be a necromantic perversion, but you're a dreadful tease," the creature accused, and it let the winds rise again and pull Marius back up within them. "I could let you go now, if I thought I could trust you not to do anything else stupid. You have twenty seconds to make me trust you that far."

"Or else what?" Marius demanded.

"I haven't decided. I could release you by inches and incinerate you as I go. Or let Bheeghon eat you, I haven't fed him in a few days." The creature moved the fleshier of its hands almost lovingly over the vicinity of Marius' thigh, which was at the creature's eye level, the cyclone between them preventing him from actually stroking Marius' kilt. "Or see for myself how you taste."

Marius wet his lips beneath the mask, unsettled and not sure which of these possibilities unnerved him more. He hadn't come this far, fought through the horrors of training, battled his way off Mardum, endured prison and the Legion's brutal interrogators, only to die to some undead warlock... thing. "I... I promise not to execute you on the spot."

The creature tilted its head up at him. "And before you take it in your lunkish head to attack me again?"

Marius wracked his brains. He was at the thing's mercy. What did it want to hear? 

"I will... carefully consider," Marius said haltingly. "You. And the possible consequences of my choice." 

The creature backed up a few more steps, a precautionary measure. The thing was smart and careful--Marius would have to be smarter if he had to slay it. Contorting both hands, one of which was definitely skeletal, with only a few thin ounces of flesh and muscle clinging determinedly to the palm, the creature performed some gestures like a mage's cantrip of cessation to release him. Marius might have fallen, but the release was smooth and he found his footing without difficulty, landing in a crouch and picking up his fallen glaive. Marius straightened slowly, his movements measured, lest the creature think he was readying himself to spring. He tensed and relaxed each of his muscles as he recovered from the nether-cyclone, flexing his feet at the ankles, curling his clawed toes, rolling his shoulders, stretching his arms out, testing his freedom for limits or changes, all while the creature watched him avidly, its eyes bright with fel power like it was ready for him.

When Marius sheathed his glaives, the creature held out the fleshier of its two hands. "Tehd Shoemaker."

*

Marius looked at its extended hand for a long time before shaking his head no. 

"You don't shake hands? How barbaric. I have imps better trained. What's your name?"

Why did it want... introductions, as though they were to be associates? "I might have to destroy you," Marius said forcefully.

"Yes, you mentioned," Tehd said, sounding a bit impatient. "Until the day of our great, final battle, which will surely last at least thirty seconds, what do I call you?"

It could do no harm to answer, he decided, if they were truly to travel together for a time. "Marius Felbane."

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" The burning outline of Tehd's head shook back and forth.

"You... make shoes?"

Tehd made a dismissive gesture. "A lifetime ago. I probably haven't lost the art, but you don't want to know the premium I would charge for a pair accommodating toenails like yours."

Practiced though Marius was at putting off the needs of his body, a wave of fatigue swept over him then. His back ached, his neck ached, and it felt as though weights were attached to his eyelids. His struggles against the banishment spell had eaten into the last of his strength and stores of energy. "I need to sleep for a time."

Tehd thought for a moment. "There's a sheltered place to rest about three minutes walk from here."

Marius whistled two short notes followed by a longer breath out: Haterunner's summons. This warlock thing-- this _Tehd_ \-- wasn't harmless, but it hadn't slain him when it certainly had the chance. He could probably trust it, to a point. Enough to set it on Haterunner behind him to travel. He could force himself to walk, but he was so very weary. "Haterunner can bear us both."

Marius turned and went to his steed as Haterunner climbed the hill. Marius swung a leg over the saddle and waited. Tehd followed him over, but didn't immediately climb on behind him. When Marius glanced back, Tehd was on one knee examining Haterunner's haunches and bone-ridged tail. Notably, Haterunner was not biting Tehd's face off.

"I almost want you to try something so I can enslave both you and this thing," Tehd said.

Marius scowled. "Be quiet and get on."

Haterunner's saddle was long enough to seat dual riders at need but not truly designed for two, and so Marius didn't object when Tehd slipped arms around his waist in order to ride without falling off. It was necessary, that was all. Despite their thinness, and the fact that the flesh was largely missing from one of his hands, Tehd's arms had the muscular solidness of any living person's. The velvet robe Tehd had mentioned covered his chest and arms, its pleasurable, impractical-for-the-wilderness texture gently brushing against Marius' bare back and torso in a way that forced Marius to notice the sensation repeatedly. Tehd's skeletal hand was disturbingly cold, his fleshy hand merely cool to the touch, as his throat had been.

Marius pulled up the reins when Tehd gestured off the road. They ended up in a tiny clearing, surrounded by a palisade of concealing trees on one side and a cluster of bushes and shrubs on the other. Marius had passed this location earlier but pressed on. Now he erected his shelter while Tehd stood back and watched him. The tent was a complex affair, a hexagonal stretch of canvas that folded back into a two-sided half-tent for daytime shelter.

Tehd volunteered to stand guard. "Since I don't sleep," he said.

"Fine," Marius said, too tired to bother pointing out that since he was traveling alone, he was used to resting without anyone taking watch. He unrolled his bedroll and slipped beneath the blanket. His mind and body had been trained to take rest when and how he could steal it, and he fell immediately into a deep sleep.

Hours later, when he awakened and rolled over, Tehd stirred-- right next to him. Tehd was reading a thick book with softly glowing pages. The stifling stench of death was strong in the air of the tent.

Marius bolted straight up, surprised and irritated. "I thought you were keeping watch."

Tehd sat up and stretched leisurely, as if on a vacation. "I was, but it became interminably boring after the first seven hours," Tehd said. "I felt like lying down. Nothing's happening out there."

"Seven hours?! How long was I asleep?" Marius could not tell the time of day unless it was daytime and he was looking directly up at the sky. Shades of sunrise and degrees of twilight were beyond his ken.

"Oh, I don't know," Tehd said, leaning sideways out of the tent's overhang and turning his face up to study the night sky. With the movement came the sound of creaking bones. "Perhaps nine hours."

Marius hid his vexation, easing out of his bedroll and beginning to efficiently roll it up. "Make ready then," he said only. "We patrol to the north."

"Why north? We should go along the ridge."

Marius stopped, frowned, and set a knee on his bedroll, keeping the edges aligned to keep a neat and even cylinder as he strapped it tightly. Anything worth doing was worth doing well. "Demonic reinforcements are being amassed to the north. My mission is there--to stop or at least delay the Legion before they can flank our forces at Illidari Stand."

"Hmph," said Tehd.

In the matter of his destination, there was no room for negotiation or compromise. "My orders come from Kayn Sunfury. That is our road."

"I'm not your prisoner," Tehd said blithely. "If you're choosing our destination, you should be paying me."

Marius stared at Tehd's shifting, blurring outline in profile. "Paying you?" he echoed.

Swaying slightly, Tehd ungainly rose to his knees, his bones creaking again, and he began to roll up his own bedroll. Marius wondered why Tehd even owned a bedroll if he truly didn't sleep. "Yes," Tehd said. "'Payment' refers to compensation in the exchange of goods or services. Often it takes the form of gold."

"I know what payment is," Marius said crossly, then cut himself off and turned away to force calm. Tehd was a very annoying person. Quickly he ducked out of the oppressive tent and took some deep breaths, at last feeling able to breathe freely again; the fresh air was a relief after the permeating miasma of Tehd in an enclosed space. Reaching behind, Marius paused in packing up the camp to center and retie his mask in back.

Marius thought about the situation as he dismantled and collapsed the tent. He had little enough to lose, but his honor remained to him, and he wasn't about to mislead or lie to the creature. _Tehd._ Marius had little coin. He carried thirty silver pieces for an emergency bribe, collected in a little leather bag given to him before he departed. Kayn was a fierce, almost compulsive proponent of preparedness.

They'd whispered that the Black Temple had been sacked, its riches lost or stolen away when their refuge was violated and Lord Illidan murdered. Again Marius felt the nauseous wave of loss flooding over him, as fresh as when he'd first heard Kayn speak the appalling news on the Temple's summit a decade before, and he pushed it away. Lord Illidan would intone that grief was a luxury they could ill afford.

The Illidari possessed greater purpose than the roaming adventurers out idly seeking their fortunes, and so they had little use for money. True that during their escape from the Wardens' vault, Kayn had commanded some of the initiates to grab and tote out dusty chests of gold, but that was mostly to have coin on hand with which to bribe the locals, mercenaries, and/or adventurers to do their bidding when they reached the Broken Isles. No reason existed to rent cushy mattresses when they had bedrolls and tents carefully packed on their felsabers and shriekers. No reason stood to purchase food when Marius carried Illidari rations and could hunt or even forage at need, though foraging was a dangerous business without conventional vision and knowledge of the land, and thus was a last resort. But he would risk it at need. He would risk much. He and his brethren were made of steel as true as their warglaives, and Marius had nothing he needed to buy.

Marius finished folding up the tent, putting his weight on the canvas to compress the bundle of it, and turned back to Tehd. "I have no gold to offer you," he said. A technical truth. "But you may keep whatever we find along the way, and if you prove as useful in battle against the Legion as you claim, I will seek recompense for you from the Illidari leadership."

"Fine," Tehd said, not sounding disappointed. Tehd took the rolled up tent out of his hands. Marius watched as Tehd strapped and tied their things to Haterunner, and, Marius noticed, Haterunner let him. Haterunner barely tolerated handling by Marius' fellow Illidari, and he'd only been more vicious since the release from the Wardens' stasis. "Congratulations, you have an employee."

Marius narrowly circled Haterunner, careful not to brush against Tehd's back as he moved. "Do you eat?" Marius asked, withdrawing a dozen strips of dried meat from one of Haterunner's saddlebags.

"Of course," Tehd said. "Human, when I can get it. Thigh meat."

Marius couldn't tell whether it was a joke. Demon hunters did not tend towards a sense of humor, as a general rule, and with his penetrating sight he could focus and perceive demons through forty feet of rock and hundreds of yards of open space, but his ability to read subtle facial expressions had been lost. His sight had not expanded to the extent it did most of his kin at his same level of mastery, and for the first time in a long time, he keenly felt the price he'd paid to become what he was. He didn't even like Tehd, but sharply he felt the lack of his ability to see unimportant things on a face, to read small social cues, to know the appropriate ways to behave with another person, one who was unlike him. The thought made him wish that he were back at the Stand with the other Illidari, all of whom had sacrificed the lesser mortal niceities for their greater power and faculties, all for the only cause that mattered. Even though his sight remained inferior, he was respected for his heightened demon-sensing and his prowess in combat, and he was deferred to as one of their elite. He would not have been sent alone on this vital mission were he not trusted to emerge the victor against stark odds. His sight was an ongoing source of frustration, but all Lord Illidan's followers had their troubles--sanity most ominous among them, which had not been too much of a problem for him personally, but also difficulties like the panic attacks Slitesh suffered from, or Allari's partial amnesia, or Jace's screaming nightmares, and though Marius was lucky enough not to suffer from that sort of emotional scarring, he understood wholly why the others did. The other demon hunters understood him, were the same as him. He could see their faces and forms better than he could other elves or humanoids. For a moment Marius felt lost.

Silently he handed Tehd half the dried meat. Tehd accepted the strips, scrutinized them with an expression Marius couldn't discern, and rifled through his own knapsack to produce a large bag of something. Marius inhaled for information, but he was having difficulty smelling things over the repulsive odor of death. Taking Marius' hand, Tehd carefully transferred a handful of the contents from cupped palm to palm. Marius rolled one of the morsels between finger and thumb, identifying it by shape and feel as a mushroom.

Wary of poisoning even now, Marius lifted his gaze and waited for Tehd to pop a mushroom in his own mouth (or at least mime the action of eating one, Illidari paranoia died hard) before trying one himself. The mushroom exploded in his mouth with flavor. Cooked with red wine, Marius thought. He remembered wine. The little mushroom was the best thing he could recall eating since the last time he'd had felboar roasted in Cenarion spirits, a dish served occasionally in the Black Temple. Tehd reached out again, grasping his wrist and topping off the palmful of mushrooms with a handful of crumbly stuff.

The scent of the addition was sweet, but there was something else to it, too. Marius cautiously sniffed the contents of his palm. "Is that... mold?"

Tehd nodded. "Spiced lichen. Fresh from the magnificent Undercity."

Marius frowned. He had never heard of the Magnificent Undercity, but his standards weren't so high that he was above eating mold, and when he put a few feathery wisps of the lichen in his mouth he didn't regret his decision. The sugary spice dissolved sweetly in his mouth, yet the mold gave a depth of flavor and texture not unlike a blue cheese. The taste lashed around him, pulling him back in time to another place and another life. Marius lowered his head. He ate slowly and meditatively, hyper-aware. His taste buds were generally ignored and diminished by disuse. Since leaving the Black Temple, the Illidari ate for nourishment alone, as one more task to accomplish, but the paired experience of these new foodstuffs awakened taste and memory both. Marius was silently glad his face was concealed. His heart might ache privately at the sense memory of those lost days, for the flashes of his family, his traditions, his youth and innocence, but he had no wish to share his innermost feelings with Tehd.

Tehd put a piece of the jerky into his mouth, drawing his attention--Marius could tell by the sharp yank of his arm after his teeth clamped down on a bite. Tehd gnawed for a few moments before spitting onto the ground. 

"Are you louts too dull to tell 'food' from 'not-food'?" Tehd appeared to be scraping his tongue off with his fingers. "Where did you come by this? I've chewed shoe leather more edible."

Marius said nothing.

"It's decided then, we eat my food," Tehd announced. "If I finish this, I won't have any teeth left by the end."

Odd that an undead, warlock stranger as dangerous and suspect as this one should treat him with both fellowship and generosity. It was humbling, despite the insults. Tehd bent down and offered the meat strips to Haterunner, who took them from his bony hand, as docile as a tamed nightsaber.

*

Tehd the Forsaken warlock watched him, Marius thought, as much as he did Tehd. As though Tehd were deciding something about him, too. Marius was getting better at determining when Tehd was looking at him, he thought. Marius thought Tehd was looking at him right then, as they sat together and Marius re-braided his long hair.

When they sat together it was easier to tell, because when he sat, Tehd would sit not across from him like a normal person would, but right next to him, thigh beside thigh in unnecessary closeness. Then Marius could guess by whether Tehd was in profile or not.

Tehd again made the distinctive, strange clicking sound. Marius was considering asking what he was doing to make that noise when Tehd suddenly used his nearness to run the fingers of his fleshy hand over Marius' bicep. "Quite the strong and silent type, aren't you? I like when you keep your virtuous and morally upstanding mouth closed."

Tehd's fingertips were dry and his touch tickled. Marius shifted his arm away. He was almost done with the braid, though without using a comb and without removing his mask, his hair wasn't quite smooth or well-groomed. What mattered was that it would be out of the way in battle. "You talk enough for both of us."

"I notice you have opened your mouth to tell at least three adventurers and passersby that you might need to kill me for the betterment of the world, and never once mention how I laid you out in about ten seconds, you boor."

"You didn't 'lay me out,' you trapped me," Marius said crossly.

"Semantics. We fought and I won."

Marius grunted.

"You know, it's quite strange going about with someone who's constantly veiled." Tehd changed the subject like he was manic, Marius was noticing. Tehd poked with his cold fingerbones at the draping edge of Marius' mask. "Having no idea what they look like. What have you got under there?"

Marius jerked his head away, irritated. "What have you got under your clothes?"

Marius had intended this retort to shut Tehd up, but the effect was nothing of the sort. "Ohh, nothing special. Some rot but decomposition has been radically slowed. Nearly eradicated! You'll find most of my parts are still attached."

Marius made a disgusted noise. He finished wrapping the last tie at the end of his braid, tucked the ribbon into the coil of itself, then stood up and walked away to look north.

"Have you a hideous batch of scars under there?" Tehd's voice carried, following him. "Tentacles? If you've an infestation of flies breeding in your empty eye sockets, you have my full sympathy. I know a lovely gentleman with that very difficulty..."

*

The day had been a smashing success by any measure. Tehd had proved not only useful, but invaluable in destroying the Legion's towering, army-wide portal (which Tehd claimed was a thoroughly ineffective summoning mechanism, but which was still Marius' assignment and a tactical risk to be eliminated). He'd discovered Tehd knew a suspiciously large number of demons by name and by sight. They'd slain many of the demons already dwelling within the camp, driving the rest into a temporary retreat, and their victorious battle with Arkethrax had been nothing short of exhilarating.

They patrolled back east afterwards, but when he began to feel tired, Marius didn't hesitate to suggest they set up the camp. A rest had been well-earned.

His brethren tended to sleep with one eye open, as the saying went, but Marius slept like the dead and no amount of training had changed that. 

He was dreaming of Larinysia, a sweet dream, full of warmth and love and lazy arousal that turned sexually intense partway through. Larinysia was sucking him and stroking him and he was going to come...

...and then there was sharp real-world shouting.

"Marius! Wake up! We're doing this!"

Marius jerked awake, realizing several facts in rapid succession: Tehd's hand was inside his untied kilt and wrapped around his cock. He was achingly hard. Tehd's fingers and palm were wet and slippery with something.

Marius froze, stricken and confused for a long second before he said anything, quivering almost with the effort of trying to lie still, and he didn't stop Tehd. The rhythmic stroking felt too good to pull away from, though the realization of what was actually happening had wrenched him back from the edge of orgasm. He studied Tehd as best he could in that long slow moment, but the rippling features of Tehd's face told him nothing. Marius spoke with forceful calm; he didn't want the touching to stop yet, though he knew he should. "What. Are. You. Doing?"

"Trying to get this thing to stop poking me so I can get some reading done," Tehd said, sounding truly annoyed. "It's been fifteen minutes of you moaning and humping my rear end."

Taken aback, Marius was speechless for a moment before he recovered. "I--I didn't know--"

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't," Tehd said agreeably. "Good dream?"

"No!" Nowhere had he yet managed the words to tell Tehd to quit it and unhand him, as he should. "This isn't--"

"Oh, stop, and spare me whatever silly moralizing you're about to do. This doesn't mean anything. Shut up and feel it and come already. Then you can go back to sleep, and I can go back to my book."

Marius didn't know what to say; arguing with Tehd never got him anywhere when they were awake and afield. Tehd had a smart mouth and an answer for everything, and now would clearly be no different. Marius was not cowed by any means, but Tehd's hand felt so good it was difficult not to be pacified. Tehd gave a little squeeze at the end of a stroke and Marius couldn't hold in his gasp.

"Yes, that's it," Tehd said lasciviously. Tehd worked his cock over with expert touches, and when Tehd grazed one of his balls, Marius lifted and bent his upper leg to facilitate Tehd's access to everything between his legs, so long neglected. Tehd responded by running the tip of a shiveringly cold finger-bone far back along Marius' crack, from his anus up along the line of his sack as his cock was continually stroked. Marius was going to tell him to stop, he was, but the stroking and brushing caresses felt so exquisite Marius continued to lay quiet and pliant for them. He would make Tehd stop in another minute. 

_No, you won't,_ the demon inside him suddenly predicted, and Marius shuddered. Marius was singular of purpose and excellent at compartmentalizing. He refused to answer the demon, and so it didn't often pipe up anymore.

But as Tehd continued, Marius needed badly to come, and he could only lie to himself for so long with the demon murmuring the truth inside his mind. It was like the demon waited long periods just to lull him into thinking it wouldn't surface again. Marius finally gave himself over to the feelings, telling himself it was just to shut its voice out, but the truth was he was as helpless to stop Tehd as when he'd been caught up in the rushing confines of the banishment spell. Sweating, Marius began thrusting in earnest into the inside of Tehd's fist, where Tehd's cool skin felt warm from friction, and he groaned as he felt the familiar tightening in his loins.

When he came, the world seemed to go black, dropping him into a darkness so deep it felt like he would not return, as though his spectral sight would never burn and blaze fel green and gray again, and his stomach felt miles away. Tehd stroked him deftly through his orgasm, drawing every ounce of pleasure out of him as though Tehd had been raised from the grave to intimately touch kaldorei anatomy.

 _Told you,_ the voice said.

Marius was thousands of years old and before he'd met Larinysia, before the mostly contented ages of his life were shattered by the Legion, he had conducted a natural number of love affairs and even his share of romantic one-offs. But not with anyone like Tehd. Never before with a dead thing, a monster. When his orgasm was fully over Marius rolled over to his other side, away from Tehd, feeling sick with self-disgust.

 _But he's perfect for you, Marius,_ the demon whispered. _He's dead on the outside, and you're dead on the inside._

Tehd had aimed Marius' cock at his chest during his release, and Marius could feel the cooling wetness spattered there. Marius groped in his personal darkness for the single washcloth from his bag.

Did Tehd expect him to reciprocate?

But Tehd didn't seem to. When he focused his vision behind him, Tehd had already rolled over, opened the book with glowing pages, and begun to read.

With his dry washcloth Marius rubbed at the damp spots on his skin, then re-tied his kilt and fell back asleep.

*

When Marius woke up, Tehd was still reading next to him, turning enchanted pages as though nothing had happened.

Marius found his washcloth by feel near his head and got up without acknowledging Tehd. He went to the stream not far from their campsite clutching the washcloth in his hand. Faintly he could see the movement of the clear-running water, and he knelt on the damp earth of the bank. He had only to breathe to know he hadn't dreamed the sex, with the thick smell of his come and Tehd's dead, slightly stale scent clinging more faintly to the rough cloth. Strange that Tehd's smell on it was weak and fading instead of rank and pungent.

Marius unfolded the washcloth in his hands and pressed the ragged square of fabric underneath the water, wringing and rinsing it.

He glanced sideways when he heard Tehd's approaching footsteps. Tehd came to stand next to him, closer than acquaintances should stand, and reached out to his mask, but Marius caught his bony hand and held it a distance away from his face. Tehd made no attempt to pull his arm away, but his flesh-stripped fingerbones writhed independently and repeatedly in Marius' grip like live worms, like each was alive with a mind of its own, seeking escape.

"Let me have a peek," Tehd said, looking down at him. "At least one of us should know what the other looks like."

Marius stood, with one fist gathering and squeezing the water out of his washcloth, dexterous enough to rise without letting go of either Tehd or the cloth. "You've had plenty of chances to look while I was asleep."

"That would be rather an invasion of privacy, don't you think?"

"You don't need to see," Marius said, and he meant to say it firmly but the words came out in a croak, as though he was nervous. And he wasn't nervous. He licked his lips. "Why did you do that?"

Tehd didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Why not?"

As Marius searched for the proper answer, striving to choose from an array of various ideas as to _why not_ , Tehd added, "In my experience, the best traveling partners always do. You obviously needed a hand. You were starting to bruise my bony buttcheek."

Marius was struck by the realization that he couldn't detect Tehd's stench at all, and he felt no wind against his skin that could be blowing the odor away. He processed suddenly he hadn't been able to smell Tehd's rotting body last night in the tent, either. Marius leaned in and inhaled right near Tehd's face. "I can't smell you anymore," Marius said, momentarily baffled.

"No?" Tehd said innocently. "I can't imagine you miss it...?"

"What did you do?" Marius demanded. Threateningly he released Tehd's wrist and clapped a clawed hand on the side of Tehd's neck, though he didn't follow through with a squeeze.

"A spell. Just to be polite," Tehd said, ignoring the hand. "Good traveling partners do that, too."

"You can do that?!"

Tehd shrugged, the motion brushing off Marius' loosening hand. "I can do lots of things," Tehd said carelessly.

Marius was confused. "If you can make yourself not stink of death, why didn't you long before now?"

Tehd sighed at him. "I'm undead. I can't make myself not stink of death. I did a spell so you can't smell me anymore."

A spell on him and him alone. Not having to endure the reek of Tehd's decay was nice, but knowing Tehd had performed magic upon him was discomfiting. Marius knew enough of sorcery to know Tehd almost certainly used something of his body working that sort of magic--Tehd had trimmed off a few of his hairs while he slept, perhaps, or discreetly collected a smear of his blood after their battle with the demons at Felblaze Ingress. Marius inhaled, long and slow, filling his lungs with air. Reassuringly, he could smell everything else about the morning, a thousand different degrees of scents: the crisp green freshness of the grass, the earthiness of the dirt, the mineral composition of the water, the fragrance of the nearby cherry blossoms, the honey produced by a colony of bees some distance away. His own come.

Marius looked at the blaze of Tehd's strange face, then turned away.

*

They traveled long and hard that day and well into the night, making their way west through the ancestral lands of his own people. The region was now eerily devoid of living elves. His once-vibrant people had been reduced to ghosts, eternally enduring spirits down to a one. Some offered greetings, others muttered curses as they passed. None greatly disturbed their progress along the whispering grassy paths.

They set up camp alongside one another. Marius was erecting the tent when the imp turned up carrying a dead rabbit and a scratchy woven bag. Before Marius could so much as hurl a glaive in its direction, Tehd was shouting at him not to kill it. Marius gave him a dirty look Tehd couldn't see, but he didn't thrust a blade into the imp's heart the way he wanted to.

Tehd expertly skinned the rabbit with a dagger, holding the single piece of pelt up in the air on the tip of the blade a moment after he finished. "Fancy a fur veil?" he asked Marius. "Yours is looking sadly faded and tattered. I suppose that doesn't bother you, though."

Marius didn't dignify the question or these remarks with an answer. Setting the fur aside, Tehd didn't seem to expect one.

The way Tehd ripped the rabbit's wretched little body apart made Marius glad he could see only vague outlines, not the bloody particulars. Marius was no stranger to provisioning and had seen plenty of animals butchered in his time, but everything was creepier and more disturbing when Tehd did it.

Tehd seared the rabbit with smokeless felfire and supplemented their rabbit and mushrooms dinner with fresh-tasting olives, and they ate side by side sitting on their bedrolls in the folded-back tent. The meat was rare and well-seasoned, and Marius realized Tehd was a superior cook, even if he was deceased. The imp crouched next to Tehd and ate off his plate, as if that were in any way normal or hygienic. Disgusting things, Marius thought.

The imp moved a few feet off after a time while Tehd and Marius continued to eat. Oddly, the imp began to rant to itself, muttering impossibly rude things about Tehd and picking up and snapping tiny twigs in its ugly little demonic hands, then throwing the broken pieces like it was having a tantrum, and all the time glaring towards the horizon.

Marius swallowed a mouthful of mushrooms and glanced at Tehd. The imp was far clearer and easier to see than Tehd was, which bothered him for some reason. "Why not cut its tongue out?"

Tehd looked up, and Marius got the feeling he was surprised. "Daglop? And miss all his entertainment value?"

Marius nodded.

"And you think I'm a monster," Tehd said. "He's not talking about me. His former master violated his contract."

Marius looked back at the imp, scoffing. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"Your exposure to the absurd is sadly lacking," Tehd said.

 _Not now that I know you_ , Marius thought. By now the imp had fallen silent and was listening to them, he thought, though it hadn't turned around. "It's an imp. One of a trillion trillion. It has no moral code. What's even in a demon's contract?"

Tehd kept chewing and didn't immediately answer, so Marius went on. "Imps are the simpletons of the demon ra--"

The imp suddenly whirled around. "Why, I'll 'simpleton' you," it screeched in its high-pitched voice, squeaky with rage. "You great doltish lug, you don't even--"

"Shhh, Daglop," Tehd said, swallowing, fond as a father, and as the imp snarled once and fell silent Tehd turned back to Marius. "Do you always talk so confidently about things you obviously know nothing about? Demons handle trauma in different ways. Sometimes Daglop rants. I know it's hard for you, but stop being oafish."

Marius grunted and went back to his dinner.

After they finished eating, the imp took off for wherever imps go, and Marius fully extended the tent to sleep. As he worked, and as he unrolled his bedroll and cast himself down, Marius had the thought he should tell Tehd not to dare touch him as he had again, that Tehd was disgusting and Marius wanted no part of it. But even as he considered it, he felt familiar tendrils of lust drifting through his lower body, threading together unmistakably like a pool in his groin. His body desired another tantalizing session of arousal and orgasm, just as his half-forgotten taste buds watered at the thought of another breakfast of lichen-and-mushrooms. But why in Elune's name did he want a repeat of last night? Desire was now one more need of his body to perfunctorily satisfy and then ignore, or sublimate into more productive channels, like fighting.

He was free to do as he wished, of course. Though the Illidari were focused principally on their mission, there was sex, even romance among the ranks. Kayn and Allari carried on a torrid on-off affair that had never interfered with their mutual purpose. Asha was fond of him, and Marius thought if he asked, she might be willing to provide him with the foreign touch he now craved. But she was miles away, back at Illidari Stand. He could go a short ways from the camp and stroke himself if he was truly so desperate, but having had a taste of what Tehd offered, Marius found he wanted more than he could do alone.

Which raised the despairing question: did he honestly want to have a sexual affair with this impudent, demon-consorting, fel-smitten, annoying dead thing? He was already half-hard from thinking about coming again in Tehd's skillful hand. But whatever Forsaken were, however they'd come to be, they were as unnatural as anything Marius had encountered in his life.

Then again, he knew, he was hardly ordinary himself, and Tehd was--not bad. Tehd was powerful, alarmingly so, and if he was aggravating he was inarguably useful against the Legion.

"Tehd," Marius said neutrally, deliberately using the warlock's name for the first time. Tehd was as clever and attentive as he was irksome; he would take notice. "Fair warning, you may be prodded again tonight."

Until that moment, Marius hadn't even really considered Tehd might reject his advances, that Tehd might truly only have touched him the previous night in order to rest undisturbed. But why, when he could have shifted two inches away, or even woken Marius with a shove?

Tehd's head lifted. "Oh?" 

By Elune's Light, why was he inviting this? Tehd was _dangerous_. And what would happen when they met back up with the other Ilidari, what would he say to explain? Would the others smell Tehd on him? How could they not? Was there an intrigued note in Tehd's voice or was Marius imagining it? Even more desperately than before, Marius wished his sight had come back to him fully. Beginning a sexual affair without the benefit of normal vision made things far more uncertain than he remembered.

"Yes." Marius lay back on his bedroll and untied his kilt, pushing the garment down and then off, slightly self-conscious of his calloused, curled, clawed and filthy feet as he did so. But Tehd closed his glowing book and set it to the side.

"I would prefer to read in peace later tonight," Tehd said, and his shifting outline slipped down between Marius' legs.

Tehd's fleshier set of fingers closed cool around his length, and Marius gave up his fears and doubts and cast his head back, arching his back and pushing his hips up as Tehd shifted his foreskin and applied a dripping tongue to his glans. Marius didn't hesitate to start thrusting this time, sliding his cock with shameful eagerness in and out of the circle of Tehd's fingers and the hot wetness of his mouth.

 _Wait_. Marius grabbed at Tehd's horns to stop him, only to discover Tehd's horns weren't horns at all, but strands of long hair stiffly lacquered into cones. For a long time he'd wondered about Tehd's unusual row of horns--why did he have them, how did he get them? From a demon? Were they made of bone or something more like teeth or ivory? Was Tehd some hideous amalgamation of bone and body parts from other beings? Why did Tehd's undead, fel-glowing aura only dimly envelop them? Why did Tehd periodically rub some kind of polish over them? A hundred mysteries solved only to open up a deeper mystery: why would anyone do such a freakish thing with their hair?

But Marius had a more pressing concern, so he said nothing about it, only used the closest hair cone to pull Tehd's head up, earning an irritated noise. "Why is your mouth hot?"

"A localized demonfire spell cast on my tongue at a tenth normal strength. Let go of my hair."

Marius squeezed his eyelids closed. Ask a horrifying question, get a horrifying answer. What was he _doing_? But he let go of the strangely textured hair spike, and Marius' regret didn't last any longer than it took Tehd to get back to expertly pleasuring him, kissing the head of Marius' cock and tonguing the folds of Marius' foreskin as though he were enthusiastically kissing a mouth instead of a sex organ. Tehd took in his whole length, for with no need to breathe and no apparent gag reflex his ability to deep-throat was amazing. Tehd sucked him with dedication until Marius knew he would come soon... and then as if Tehd recognized his nearness he abandoned Marius' needy and twitching cock, moving his mouth farther down and delicately touching tongue to balls, then further still down to Marius' asshole. That was alright, if a bit unexpected, but it made sense dead creatures wouldn't care so much about heading to the arguably unclean places. Marius spread his legs far apart and pulled them back to offer better access... until Tehd wet a fingertip and stroked his anus, not yet pressing to enter him, but the threat of manual penetration was there all the same, and that was more than Marius cared to do.

"Don't do that," Marius said, involuntarily closing his legs a degree.

"No?" But Tehd relented and returned to tonguing his anus up and down and then in tiny circles. Marius relaxed again, both from the reassurance of Tehd stopping and from the resumption of the incredible sensation of a tongue teasing him there. Rellian had done this to him most memorably, in the time before he'd met Larinysia, love of his life. Both their faces were a blur in his memory. 

Tehd kept at his task and well, but the pressure in Marius' pelvis grew, and patience had never been his strong suit.

 _Look at you, vulnerable under the enemy,_ the demon gloated. _You_ know _he's the enemy. And you asked for this. Pathetic._

"Finish me," Marius said, sounding strained to his own ears.

"You didn't say please," Tehd said. "Your manners are abhorr--"

"Please," Marius snapped.

Tehd's hot mouth returned and engulfed Marius' cock once more, and in no time at all Tehd obliged him, deep-throating him when it counted most, stroking his balls and swallowing to give Marius all the ecstasy he could have asked for and more.

Afterwards, with an effort Marius roused himself. At this point, he had to genuinely proffer reciprocation; to do anything less would be unbecoming considering he himself prompted this unholy business. He eased his hands up and along Tehd's arms, feeling the softness of the cloth garments Tehd was wearing, then tugged on the fabric, silently directing Tehd up towards him. Tehd allowed Marius to draw him up, leaning over him like they were lovers. Marius blocked the thought and applied himself to unbuttoning Tehd's robe at the collar, slowly, by feel, button after button. Tehd didn't move, looking down at him almost passively until Marius finished with the buttons and parted the robe. Tehd shrugged out of it, and Marius discovered with his hands that Tehd was naked beneath. His skin felt pockmarked and limp, but the underlying muscle was mostly firm at least rather than actively rotting like part of his neck. Marius would have felt utter revulsion if he could still have smelled Tehd's decomposing flesh, but he was scent-blind to Tehd now. The inability to smell someone took a great part of his senses away where they were concerned, and it crossed his mind that without being able to smell Tehd, Marius would have a more difficult time defeating him in a fight. But the scent-blindness made this insane intimacy possible; Marius recalled the smell of putrefaction and thought he probably couldn't have borne a sexual situation with Tehd otherwise.

Tehd shifted his weight, comfortably straddling Marius' hips. Marius had seen erect human male cocks when quietly exploring the courtesans' rooms in the Black Temple, but only from a distance, and never with regular vision. So he couldn't have said whether Tehd's seemed normal, and of course he could only see its blazing outline, no details.

Marius took Tehd's length in his hand, squeezed and tugged. Tehd's cock didn't feel particularly hard in his fist. The organ had a strange floppiness to it, even though it did stand up. Tehd's hair was by far firmer.

"Gentle," Tehd breathed. "Not so vigorous, you great galoot. Neither of us will be happy if you yank it off."

Marius grimaced under his mask. Tehd couldn't see his face, and Marius didn't move, but his body language must have conveyed something of his feelings, for Tehd added, "You don't want to hear about the time I had to have a priest sew it back on?"

"No." But Marius could feel, when he explored with his fingers at the base of Tehd's cock, a circle of tiny raised scars from stitching. Marius knew well the sensation under his fingertips of healed-over scars after a set of stitches. His sense of touch was as sensitive as his sense of smell, and he could tell by their steady evenness that the person who'd wielded the needle for Tehd had been skilled. Marius moved his fingers carefully to avoid scratching with the sharpness of his claws.

"She wanted to do a Light infusion at the end to finish off the healing. Sadomasochism at its finest. I said no. Hence, scars." Marius gripped a handful of Tehd's ass, squeezing because surely buttocks had to be a safe place to touch? "Good Light, you're rough," Tehd rasped. "I would have loved you when I was alive."

Marius didn't know what to say to that, and he hesitated to pull at Tehd's length at all. He settled for holding Tehd's cock cautiously in one hand and rubbing the head with the thumbpad of the other.

Tehd seemed to like that well enough. His hips began to shift faintly forwards and backwards." Keep going," Tehd said, and his voice was breathless. Tehd's chest did not rise and fall as a rule, and Marius rather doubted he was short on air, so it could only be excitement, sexual excitement.

"That's enough," Tehd said suddenly, and batted at Marius' hands. "Enough."

Marius stopped. "Did you...?" Marius hadn't felt the wetness of an ejaculation. Not so much as a drop. Tehd had twitched some during the stimulation, but he'd given no signs of orgasm. He hadn't gone rigid, and his muscles hadn't spasmed or tightened.

"Yes." Tehd slumped and slid limply off him, almost falling to the bedroll like he was going unconscious. His movements made Marius think of the skinned rabbit, divested of its spinal column, slack and tumbling into the cooking pot. Tehd lay still as death on the bedroll. Tehd's eyes looked open, but unmoving. Marius poked him once to make sure Tehd was still in the realm of the more-or-less-living, and Tehd's head lolled towards him an inch.

Marius was left nonplussed by the most anti-climactic climax he'd ever witnessed, but it didn't keep him awake.

*

The next morning, when he was starting to saddle Haterunner, Tehd came to his side, reached out and ran a slow finger beneath Marius' face, brushing across the fringe of his mask, just grazing the bottom of his jawline. Though he gave Marius plenty of opportunity, this time Marius didn't stop him as Tehd pinched the draping cloth and lifted it up.

Tehd stood and looked for a long time without saying anything.

"You look every bit as ridiculous as I expected," Tehd pronounced finally, and he let the fabric fall back into place. "I see now why you all cover your eye area and half of you hide your entire faces. A wise decision."

Marius honestly wasn't sure how he felt about this judgement. Tehd didn't mean most of the outlandish things he said, as far as Marius could tell, and his opinion didn't really matter very much.

Or did it? 

Should it? 

"You wanted to see," Marius said.

"And now that I have, you can just leave that on," Tehd said. "The hidden face, bared chest look is spectacular on you."

Tehd began to walk away, but Marius grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. "My turn," Marius said, and reaching out he laid both hands on Tehd's cheeks.

If Tehd was surprised or had any reaction at all in his face, Marius couldn't tell, and he was expecting Tehd to pull away or make a wise-ass remark, but Tehd didn't move or say anything at all. Marius scrutinized what he could see, squinting and focusing and refocusing his vision to behold Tehd's face as best he could. He saw Tehd's features in grayscale and planes of shadow, and then in ever-shifting green flames with all fading to grayness behind him.

Marius closed his eyelids and ran his hands gently over Tehd's cheekbones, high and bony-firm with thin, limp skin stretched over them like old, slack drums incapable of a beat. Marius slid his fingers forward, setting his palms against Tehd's hairless temples as he explored the pair of rounded human ears where the skin was ever so slightly greasy, then pulled back to stroke the sunken hollows of Tehd's cheeks. Tehd had none of the healthy, natural fleshiness to his face that all living races prized, all was crepey skin over a skeletal framework. Marius could feel fingernail-sized divots of rot in Tehd's cheeks, indentations or flat-out holes where the skin felt like it'd simply given way--or been eaten away. He imagined a mottled look to them. 

_He's hideous,_ the demon opined. _I wish you could see what you've attached yourself to._

 _You don't know what he looks like either,_ Marius thought back balefully.

Marius rested his thumbs briefly in the depressions of deep-set eyes, feeling the withered, wrinkled, loose skin of Tehd's closed eyelids, skating fingertips along either side of a straight nose, trying to create a mental portrait of what he was feeling. Tehd might have been a handsome man in life--not that Marius liked the look of human men. But then, he didn't like the look of anything anymore. Marius traced a finger over Tehd's dry lips and down to learn he had a tiny cleft in his chin, too small to see, but enough to notice by touch. Marius even squeezed the isolated spikes of hair on Tehd's head, which were so stiffly lacquered they didn't feel like hair at all.

"Well?" Tehd said when Marius dropped his hands.

"It is an excellent thing I'm blind," Marius replied smugly. Ridiculous to be so petty, but it felt satisfying to give Tehd a taste of his own obnoxious medicine. Surely Tehd could have no comeback for such an answer. 

But Tehd did. "Yes, it's perhaps your finest quality," Tehd said, almost warmly.

Marius wondered whether all 'Forsaken' were this annoying, or this frustrating to know. "How has your mouth not gotten you killed long ere now?" Marius snapped.

"Maybe it did," Tehd cracked, all wit. "Though it seemed to please you well last night."

Marius glared down at him for a moment behind his mask, then at last turned his back on Tehd to saddle and ready Haterunner for the next ride.

*

Back at Illidari Point, shouts greeted him. Marius was prepared to be stopped due to Tehd sitting behind him on Haterunner, but he outranked the guards at the outskirts of the camp, and they allowed him to pass with only smiles, nods of acknowledgement, and a few congratulations. They rode straight in to the center of the camp, to the pavilion the Illidari leadership used as a makeshift headquarters, the place all their battle plans originated these days.

"Well done, brother," Kayn called when he saw who approached. Marius hopped off Haterunner as Kayn met him halfway with an embrace, clapping him on the back hard. "We sent Izal and Kor'vas scouting after you just in time to see you blow up the portal."

"I had help," Marius said, and glanced back at Tehd, still sitting on Haterunner.

"Marius!" Kor'vas dashed into the pavilion and hugged Marius with ferocious strength. "You put on quite the fireworks show."

"You brought a friend," Allari said as she approached behind Kayn, studying Tehd.

"A prisoner?" Kayn said doubtfully, looking at Tehd.

"He isn't bound," Allari said to Kayn in an undertone.

Marius felt deeply uncomfortable. "His name is Tehd. I encountered him to the east and brought him along for examination," Marius said, accepting an embrace from Belath as he entered the pavilion.

"And here I thought you'd just been rolling around in corpses," Belath said to Marius, looking at Tehd with some amusement.

"He is free-willed undead," Marius said quickly, lest any of them realize how close to the truth that was. Marius had bathed carefully that morning, naked in the nearby river, but demon hunters' sense of smell was keen.

"We've met a few of his kind," Kayn said. "They fight for one of the main Azerothian factions. Khadgar turned up to vouch for one personally."

Marius was grateful for Kayn's tacit support, though he took care not to show it. "He claimed he wars against the Legion. I doubted him, but he was invaluable with the destruction of the portal. I could not have claimed such a victory if not for him."

Conversation was then put on hold as Jace and another half-dozen Illidari came in and embraced Marius like the endeared family and returning victor he remembered he was. Tehd got a great many stares, but Marius couldn't tell what any of them really thought.

After a minute of greetings and gawking, Kayn motioned them out. "Alright everyone, party's over. Back to work."

Kayn waited for the others to depart before he spoke again. "The next site we choose for a camp will bear your name," Kayn told Marius, briefly slinging an arm around his shoulders, "to honor your triumph. Including your mastery over this thing, if he was truly that indispensable."

Tehd, still sitting on Haterunner, let out a gleeful cackle. Kayn stopped and stared at him, then back at Marius. "Are you planning to keep him around?"

Marius shrugged, more noncommittal than he felt. He did need to keep Tehd around, to watch and study, and any of them would be lucky to gain half Tehd's understanding of the enemy's portal magic. "He is a warlock, he hungers for power--"

"That is slander!" Tehd objected. "I thought we were friends."

"--and he consorts with demons, but--"

"That one's fair," Tehd said.

"--he saved my life in our battle against the leader of the Legion camp, and I believe he'll prove useful again with his command over fel portals," Marius finished. "He wants to be compensated, though."

Kayn stared hard at Tehd. "All those strikes against him, and you think he can be trusted?"

"Absolutely not," Marius said immediately.

From his silence, and the way his upper body leaned in towards them, Marius got the impression Tehd was taking a great interest in this turn of the conversation.

"But he can serve our purposes," Marius said. "I cannot vouch for him, but I will personally take responsibility for him-- he will go nowhere without me, and I will watch him for signs of increasing corruption or the possibility of betrayal. If he needs to be slain, I will not hesitate."

Kayn gave Marius a long look that might have been searching, and then he nodded. "To be honest, I thought Khadgar was .... mmm." Kayn shook his head as though privately he thought Khadgar an illustrious screwball. "But I trust your judgement, Marius," Kayn said, relenting, then gestured for Marius to approach the command table with him. "Let me fill you in on what's happened since you left." Kayn rubbed his forehead, sounding tired. "Then we can discuss how much gold your warlock thing wants for his services."

*

Marius set up his tent a great distance away from the other Illidari's, on the far outskirts of the camp, partly because there had already been some complaints about the smell, partly in case of Tehd getting up to erotic mischief in the night. Things seemed all right that afternoon until Marius came back from relieving himself to find Kor'vas and Jace standing by the tent, Tehd sitting on a barrel petting Haterunner, and three of Tehd's demons lined up in a row. Marius tensed.

"That's funny," Kor'vas was saying. She swung her outstretched arm slowly, pointing at each of the demons in turn, Daglop the imp, Syaith the succubus, and Bheeghon the felhound. "I've slain thousands of each of these. Which one would be your first choice to send against me?"

"None of them," Tehd said.

"Smart," Kor'vas said.

"I would take you on myself," Tehd added.

Kor'vas sounded impressed. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"How about a spar?" Kor'vas invited. Jace chuckled.

"Kor'vas, I don't think--" Marius began.

"Shh, Marius, it'll be perfectly fine. I like your friend," Kor'vas said, drawing her warglaives and twirling them in anticipation. "I won't glaive him into too many pieces."

Marius frowned. Since the end of their captivity there'd been no time or inclination for blade practice Marius was aware of. "There are enough demons to fight without--"

"Marius!" Kor'vas said. "Stop worrying about this. You worry too much."

Tehd rose from the barrel, favoring his left leg as ever. "No wooden practice blades? Why am I not surprised?"

"Gotta rehearse with the real thing or it's worthless," Kor'vas said. "A lot of initiates die in practice sessions, but I won't kill you much more than you already are."

"That's ever so comforting," Tehd said. He motioned her away. "Twenty paces was traditional in Lordaeron duels."

"Ten paces," Kor'vas countered.

"Oh, twenty's too far for you?" Tehd said shamelessly. "I could take you at six if you don't wish to honor my people's traditions."

"Please, I could take you at thirty paces or more. Twenty then," Kor'vas agreed as she backed up ten steps. Marius knew she hadn't fallen for Tehd's baiting, she just wanted to fight and didn't care about starting distance. Jace was shaking his head. "You're on," Kor'vas added.

"All right," Tehd said, limping backwards ten paces.

"She's going to destroy him," Jace said softly. Marius didn't answer, though he was filled with doubts.

Practice sessions in the Illidari training camp were always supervised by a master, most often Varedis. "Give the word, Marius," Kor'vas said, casting him in Varedis' role.

Marius sighed. "Go."

Kor'vas sprinted and then leaped for Tehd as Tehd began a spell. Kor'vas was lightning fast, lunging with her glaive for Tehd's throat. Marius held his breath, though he was _almost_ sure she would pull the slice at the last second and end with her blade to the rotted flesh of Tehd's neck rather than gutting through it. But just as in the fight with Marius, Tehd moved quickly, shielding himself with some kind of fel barrier, and crying the recognizable words of banishment. Marius watched as Kor'vas was lifted off her feet and sucked into the rushing updraft of a very familiar cyclone.

Marius couldn't be positive with the netherwinds swishing around her, but he was pretty sure Kor'vas looked astonished. Marius watched her struggle within the banishment spell much in the way he himself had fought.

"That's enough," Marius said to Tehd.

"No, don't stop it yet," Kor'vas called, voice strained. "I can get out of this."

Marius stood with Tehd and Jace watching her thrash. Kor'vas was possessed of considerable energy and athleticism, and watching her direct all of it towards escaping the spell was an interesting sight. Jace looked like he was in shock.

"Okay, I concede," Kor'vas said at last, and Tehd released her with a sunburst swirling cantrip of his bone-hand. The sucking winds died and dissipated.

Kor'vas landed smoothly. "Not bad for a walking corpse, I suppose," was all Kor'vas said, but Marius thought her gaze held a new respect as well as some concern.

"Thank you," Tehd said.

"Did you know he could do that?" Jace asked Marius, sounding floored.

"Yes," Marius said shortly, brushing by him. "You shouldn't have these things out if you don't want them disemboweled," he growled at Tehd as he walked past the watching demons.

"You're much more intimidating than Marius here was," Tehd said to Kor'vas, ignoring Marius entirely. "At six paces I'd still have won, but I'd have momentarily considered jumping into the bushes. I have no higher compliment to bestow."

Kor'vas didn't smile, but she did look pleased for a moment before it faded. "Can any old warlock work that spell?" she asked Tehd. Her voice was casual, but Marius could tell she was disturbed.

Tehd shook his head. "You folks are a bit slippery to grip, like an ered'ruin. It takes a master of the craft. Which I am."

"Well, good," Kor'vas said finally. "Come on, Jace."

"In a minute," Jace said, on edge. "Marius, a word?"

Marius shook his head. "I cannot leave him alone."

"I might get up to things," Tehd agreed.

"I'll stay with him for you," Kor'vas said, glancing between Marius and Jace.

"All right," Marius said, outnumbered, and he followed Jace across the camp, over to the half-ruined white stone building where many of the Illidari chose to sleep, where Jace suddenly rounded on him. "You brought him here knowing he can just... banish us?! Did you not learn anything from ten years frozen in a crystal?"

"What's to learn?" Marius said. "He's no Warden. He hasn't the ethics."

Jace made an agitated gesture with one hand. "So he's worse for having no ethics, yet he can do just the same as them! You put us all at risk! Did you not consider how dangerous he is?"

"Of course I considered it," Marius said, turning curt. 

"And if he decides to banish us all in the night, we just... what? Wait for a friendly warlock to come along and free us?!" The sarcasm was heavy in Jace's voice.

"As I told Kayn, that portal at Felblaze Ingress might still be operational without him," Marius said, feeling the demon within him stirring at the prospect of an argument that felt like it might turn physical. "He is fighting the Legion same as us. We need someone like him on our side."

"You brought him here for personal reasons, don't deny it," Jace accused suddenly.

Marius froze. "I did nothing of the sort. He is a tool for us to defeat the enemy."

"And nothing more?" Jace challenged. Jace drew closer to him, until only inches were left between them, and Marius could see the flare of Jace's nostrils.

"Lord Illidan foretold we will need every weapon available in our arsenal," Marius said, gripping calm to himself like it was a physical object, the glaive that would save him in the whirlwind.

"And to think we always thought you were the sane one," Jace said, voice cold.

"You question my sanity?" Marius retorted, openly hostile now. "I question your dedication."

Jace said no more but gave him a hard look, then turned and stalked away. They'd been close once, and Marius felt a sharp pang to have a wedge driven between them. A wedge named Tehd.

When Kayn called Marius forth the next morning with the suggestion of a new assignment to the far northern parts of the Isles, to investigate reports of a tribe of tauren gone over to the Legion and a pitlord commander summoned into their midst, Marius took Tehd and left Illidari Point on Haterunner within the hour.

*

"The day after tomorrow there will be a meeting of a professional organization in Dalaran," Tehd told him after they passed through the town of Lorlathil together. Tehd seemed to receive secretive mail, packages of food, and hand-delivered missives from black-cloaked messengers in every town they stopped by, and he wrote and sent many wax-sealed letters of his own. Marius had stolen glances over Tehd's shoulder more than once, but he was incapable of reading the parchments' contents. "I'll be gone only a few hours."

"I will accompany you," Marius said. Even if he hadn't given Kayn his word, he saw no reason to let Tehd out of his sight. Tehd was formally and officially his responsibility now.

"Absolutely not," Tehd said firmly.

"Why not, unless you have something to hide?" Marius demanded.

"So many reasons," Tehd said. "Where to begin? It'll be a group of warlocks, and there'll be demons there, and you'll whip out your giant weapons and shout 'die, demon scum' or--"

"I do not sound like that!"

"Yes, you do."

Marius returned to the subject at hand. "This is definitely a gathering I should be present at," he said, more certain than ever he should not allow Tehd to attend alone. "I will not allow you to go without me."

Tehd put a hand to his face. "No, because you would leap on everyone's servants and get us both killed because when you see a demon you can scarcely stop yourself. You reach for your glaives instead of your brain."

"I haven't killed your filthy chitterer yet," Marius said.

"And think of how much work I've put into that," Tehd said. "Compounding the issue of demons present and you turning into an uncontrollable lunatic, I'll be attending as a spy."

Surprised, Marius fell silent.

"Although," Tehd said thoughtfully. Tehd seemed to be reconsidering. "I suppose you could aid my cover... if I wanted to hide in extremely plain sight. The plainest sight imaginable."

Tehd looked him up and down, as if sizing up his intentions and trustworthiness. "If you come with me, assumptions will be made, and I shall not correct them," Tehd warned him.

Marius thought about that. The assumption that they were lovers was actually true, and Marius was adjusting to this dark new reality as best he could. And while he didn't want any of the other Illidari to know, Marius didn't care about the opinion of a group of power-obsessed fel-suckers corrupting at light speed. Though his brethren had seemed more or less tolerant of Tehd (present under his supervision), and though Lord Illidan had kept thousands of warlocks in his service, the demon hunters' feelings about warlocks generally tended towards distaste and dubiousness, and contact between the two groups was definitely going to be next to nil.

"I don't care," Marius said. "I can tolerate demons when they're on our side, as I tolerate you. The Fel Hammer holds an army of shivarra, you know."

"I've heard," Tehd said. "You tolerate me? How heartwarming."

"Then we go together?"

Tehd made the strange tapping sound for a moment. "You're lucky I don't detest your company," Tehd said finally. "Very well. But there will be rules."

*

With rented hippogryphs they traveled to the floating city above the Broken Shore, and Marius saw the city of Dalaran for the first time. The meeting of warlocks, unfortunately, was not taking place on its pleasant streets fragrant with the scents of food carts, where Marius could feel the nearness of the sun warm on his skin, but in the dark underpit of the city, deep within a complicated labyrinth of sewers. Tehd led him down confidently with his limping steps, through stone-tunnel hallways into an underground city-within-the-city of rickety wooden shanties, each built against the next with every wall a shared wall. At last Tehd turned to go into one of the ramshackle houses. Marius had to duck to enter the doorway without bashing his horns into the doorframe.

"Stay close, will you?" Tehd whispered as they went down a hall. "I don't want anyone to get any ideas."

Marius grunted, not sure what sort of ideas Tehd meant.

"And remember to be _silent_. No running your mouth about how you might have to kill us all if you decide we're evil. Not a peep of any kind. Just sit quietly, no matter what I or anyone else says."

"I said I would!"

"If you get us murdered I shall never forgive you," Tehd muttered right before they progressed through a final doorway and found themselves entering a small sea of warlocks.

The space within was larger than it appeared on the outside. Marius could see all of the persons inside fairly well. Some were positively swollen with fel magic, while others bore its traces more faintly. A recognizable variety of races was represented--humans, orcs, Forsaken like Tehd, a few dwarves, blood elves and trolls. Demons were there too as Tehd had warned, imps, a scattering of succubi, one beholder, even a few fel- and wrath-guards.

The meeting was fairly boring, with twenty-six power-hungry, fel-corrupted individuals present to listen to three other power-hungry, fel-corrupted individuals drone evilly about the 'Black Harvest' and power and stealing it and using it and conquering the Legion and stealing their power and using that. And that, Marius thought, in a nutshell, was the reason warlocks could not be trusted. For a moment he thought sadly of Jace.

The purpose of the meeting seemed to be to persuade attendees to ally with the 'Soul's Edge' conclave instead of the 'Black Harvest' conclave. The discussion was yawn-worthy, and he didn't feel like he was gathering any useful intel for the Illidari, but Marius was secretly pleased to be in on a clandestine meeting even if it was warlock levels of dumb and predictable.

By far odder and more interesting were the one-on-one conversations happening around him--and about him. More than a few of the attendees murmured to each other when he first filed in behind Tehd. Comments like "Would you look at that," and "Demon hunter, two o'clock." Two others looked his way and spoke in a language he didn't understand or even recognize, but Marius soon realized the assumption these warlocks were making was not that he and Tehd were lovers, but that he was Tehd's _minion_ , and Tehd was using him to make a splash entrance.

A troll strolling by nodded approvingly at him before the meeting began and told Tehd, "Grats, mon."

"Thank you," Tehd said blandly.

"Why do you let it keep its face covered?" a gnome woman edging past Tehd asked a minute later.

"It's a he, and he can hear you," Tehd said.

"So?" said the gnome.

Tehd waved her on.

"Those things are hyper dangerous," a human man told Tehd as they went farther into the room, sounding admiring. "What made you decide to go for it?"

"I didn't have much of a choice," Tehd replied. "I got attacked while saying hello."

"Savage beasts," the human said, and Marius growled at him. Judging by his lack of verbal or physical reaction, the human was unimpressed.

"Be quiet," Tehd reminded Marius. Marius glared behind his mask.

The undead man who sat next to Tehd for the duration of the meeting was clearly a friend or rival. He and Tehd knew each other, at least. "Shoemaker, you show-off," the undead muttered as a greeting.

"Oh please, Carendin," Tehd said blithely. "We both know if you had one, you'd flaunt it forever."

"Heh. We'll see if you can keep it under control forever," Carendin said, side-eyeing Marius. 

Tehd shrugged.

Carendin asked approximately the same question as the gnome from earlier. "Why are you still keeping his face covered?"

"If you saw him you would understand," Tehd said.

Same thing after the meeting concluded. "He must be an extremely resentful slave," a passing sin'dorei woman said to Tehd as they were all clustered together and shuffling towards the bottleneck of the exit. "More difficult to deal with than most?"

It occurred to Marius that if he had an explosive device on him he could kill a satisfying number of warlocks right about now, but he'd left his two felfire grenades behind at Illidari Point. All Kayn's hours of belabored emphasis on preparation, all for naught.

"Yes, he argues with everything I say," Tehd said. "And ill-tempered like you wouldn't believe." As the elf reached out a hand to stroke Marius' exposed chest, Tehd added quickly, "I recommend against touching him. He's volatile. Think Gorzhal but a thousand times worse."

"Pity," the elf said teasingly, her fingertips poised and hovering only an inch away from Marius' chest. "He must be terribly exciting in bed."

"Gaze upon his chest and envy me," Tehd said.

The elf giggled and slipped out the door before them.

*

"Well," Tehd told him later, after they landed the hippogryphs back in Azsuna and returned them to their owner and handler, "that did wonders you can't even fathom for my reputation."

"You should have warned me," Marius said with irritation.

"What?! I recall warning you rather extensively. You ignored everything I said and insisted on coming anyway."

Marius grunted, annoyed. Tehd assumed an incantation position and began the spell to summon his succubus, Syaith, who complained even more frequently than Daglop did. Where Daglop grumbled and ranted half-intelligibly, Syaith talked up her eventual planned revenge at extensive length and in excrutiatingly gory detail whether Marius wanted to listen or not, though Tehd often indulged her and even encouraged her. All Tehd's minions appeared to have some vendetta. Even his demon dog seemed to whine a lot. At least the succubus had been tortured by her Legion master, a situation for vengeance Marius could empathize with on some level, having been at the Legion's tender mercies himself. The imp remained opaque about the nature of the injustice done to it. Marius wondered whether Tehd collected demons disgruntled with the Legion on purpose.

Tehd finished his summoning magic and Syaith appeared with a bang and the stink of brimstone in a little puff of smoke. "Now I will warn you that if you repeat anything you heard tonight, I'll enslave you for real," Tehd said to Marius as Syaith cracked her whip to announce herself.

"Do that, and I'll tell all your fel-sucking friends I dominate you in sex," Marius said far more calmly than he would have a month prior, eyeing Syaith behind his mask, wondering if it was a bad idea to talk about private matters in front of her.

"Why, you cad," Tehd said as if he were tickled, before adding, "They're not my friends, but they'd be shocked to a one if you didn't, dear Marius." Tehd patted the back of Marius' head. Marius went to slap his bony hand away, but Tehd had already withdrawn it, quick as one of the black barracuda they'd speared in the shallows off the Azsuna coast. "I'm what they call 'obvious,' you blind git."

*

In the Stormheim cave, he'd stood stunned and thought, disbelievingly, that Tehd was about to make a _declaration_. Tehd was such a ridiculously smooth talker, Marius had never heard him stutter before. And Marius went right on thinking that, stock-still, straining to bring Tehd's face into focus, paying very little attention to their surroundings, right up until Tehd screamed his final "I" (or "eye" as the case had been) and the giant inquisitor seized and lifted them in its squeezing circular bonds.

After that incident, Tehd refused to speak to him for three hours, which felt longer because Tehd was usually the most garrulous person Marius knew.

*

Back in Azsuna, after the debacle with the Legion communication device and the endless clutches of felbats Tehd summoned right to their fairly inescapable location, Marius fumed. "You are so typical! Taunting the Legion like they're all your pets, and meddling with powers you don't comprehend! You're dangerous, is what you are! I should kill you and be done with it!"

"Come now, you know I would never taunt a pet," Tehd said.

"The world would be a safer place! A better place!"

But Tehd didn't even seem to be listening to him anymore. Marius was tempted to slit his throat just to see if he'd bleed out. If that didn't work, he could try bisecting Tehd at the middle. A demon hunter never gave up. And as Kayn so liked to say, the Illidari could not be stopped.

*

Their first kiss was accidental, a happenstance of changing positions during the sex act. Though he emphasized that it was delicate, Tehd's undead body was as flexible as a corpse after the floppy passing of rigor mortis, and the only sexual position he refused was being taken from behind on his hands and knees. But so long as he could sit on Marius' cock, or lie on his stomach or back, Tehd was up for anything. When they fucked face to face Marius could fold Tehd's legs back towards his chest, open them widely (so long as he did so gently), or rest one or both of Tehd's ankles against his shoulders, seemingly anything Marius wanted.

Having kept Tehd's legs resting up against his body for several minutes, to shift position Marius eased each of Tehd's calves down and to the side. Gravity pulled his mask away from his face, perpendicular to the ground, when he held himself directly over Tehd, but Tehd had made no further comment about the sight of his face. As Marius lowered his upper body, stretching his back and briefly resting his sex-taxed muscles, he got too close as he turned his head, and as his mask swept over Tehd's eyes and nose, their lips brushed together sideways.

Marius pulled back and paused, hesitating. The physical give and take that would be perfectly natural with anyone normal was not so clear-cut with Tehd. Kissing might well be an activity outside the sphere of their strange affair, perhaps a few steps too far into the realm of real lovers' intimacy. But it had been many years since Marius kissed anyone, and he and Tehd were, at the end of the day, fucking on a regular basis. He hovered over Tehd in the sudden awkward silence, unsure of whether he should say something, or chalk it up to an accident and continue fucking Tehd, or whether he should kiss Tehd again but more fully and genuinely, with intention.

Tehd answered the unasked question for him.

"Well, go ahead then," Tehd said expectantly.

Marius looked at him a moment longer, but he couldn't figure anything out with his limited vision, and so Marius leaned down and went in for a deliberate kiss this time. As he did, Tehd slipped his fleshier hand under the cloth of the hanging mask and ran fingers through Marius' beard just before their lips met again. Tehd's lips were dry and cracked, but they parted readily under Marius' tentatively seeking tongue. For half a second Marius thought better of kissing Tehd-- would there be anything disgusting in Tehd's mouth? worms, insects? would Marius taste the decomposition his nose could no longer detect?-- but Tehd's mouth was wet and reassuringly ordinary, with only his tongue and the blunt, flat teeth of a human. The only tastes Marius discerned were the juicy flavor and seasonings of the seared prowler meat they'd eaten for dinner, and those were fading. The only notable difference from kissing a living person was that Tehd's mouth felt cool in temperature when not enspelled.

As the kiss lengthened and deepened, Marius was agreeably surprised to find it sensual and pleasurable. Tehd's mouth was responsive under his, submissive and soft beneath his lips and tongue. With another lover Marius might have nipped lightly, but he dismissed that impulse at once. His teeth were sharp, and Tehd's body dead and fragile, making even the tenderest sort of nibble out of the question. Marius broke the kiss, took a breath, shifted his head and went back for another. Tehd slid his hand down along Marius' side, coming to rest on his hip.

Marius became so absorbed in kissing Tehd he forgot they were mid-fuck until Tehd abruptly slapped the side of his ass. Unprepared for the sudden sting, Marius' pelvis jerked as he gasped into Tehd's mouth, but he took the message. As he began moving his hips again, resuming, his cock felt even harder than before. He kept kissing Tehd while they fucked, feeling his arousal build and build until he felt himself closing in on his orgasm. 

Marius had forgotten how much he liked kissing. Remembering was most pleasant.

*

The night they returned to Illidari Point to hear that Lord Illidan had at long last returned from the tightly gripping jaws of death, his body and soul rejoined from the darkest prison and the farthest reaches of the Twisting Nether, Marius lost his breath for a second. The other Illidari had already known for a day or two, but the mood in the camp remained jubilant, and the others seemed to delight in seeing Marius hear the good news.

That evening Marius took Tehd aside in their shared tent. "When Lord Illidan returns, we will all kneel before him," Marius said. "As must you."

"This cult of personality is too weird," Tehd said.

His response wasn't exactly a refusal, but neither was it the assurance Marius required. Marius tilted his head ominously but considered his phrasing well before he spoke. Tehd responded to threats with ridicule for the most part, but he was as avaricious as a goblin and thus manipulable. "Lord Illidan is our supreme leader. As my employee," Marius stressed, "I expect you to show respect."

As he'd anticipated, Tehd relented at that. "Very well, I will bow. But I'm not going to kiss his cloven feet. You can leave me out of the suicide pact, too."

Marius ignored his nonsense. "You will bow low, and for two seconds longer than I kneel."

"Fine, fine."

*

In the end, Lord Illidan did not come to Illidari Point; half of Illidari Point traveled to Lord Illidan in his newly founded haven on the Broken Shore.

When their master came into sight, each of his followers instantly knelt upon seeing him or sensing his presence, resulting in a rippling wave effect of lowering bodies and echoing gasps amidst not a few cries of joy. Marius knelt with them and Tehd pulled himself into a deep, if contorted bow and held the posture as promised.

Lord Illidan came forward, allowing them to pay their respects for a moment, then raised his voice in his familiar, beloved growl. "Rise, my Illidari." Their ranks opened for him, enabling him to walk among them once more, his immortal gaze traveling slowly around from person to person, face to face, nodding at each or holding brief conversations as they murmured to him in turn. Marius loved to look at their leader. Though incorruptible, Lord Illidan was physically more demon than man, and Marius could perceive the shifts of his face better than he could read even the other Illidari.

"My lord Illidan," Marius said respectfully when their master's gaze came upon him.

"Marius," Illidan said, and set a hand on his shoulder for a moment, gripping him with a clawed hand that felt hot against even Marius' skin. "You have done well."

"Thank you, my lord."

Lord Illidan nodded approvingly and though he didn't let go of Marius, his gaze slid on to Tehd standing beside him. Illidan paused.

"Supreme leader," Tehd said politely with an elaborate flourish of his arm, the motion ostentatious to the point of mockery, but still courteous enough that Marius could hardly even complain later.

Lord Illidan lifted a heavy eyebrow, glancing between Tehd and Marius as if he knew everything without being told, and one side of his mouth slowly curved up in an anomalous, amused expression.

The smirk faded in an instant, and Illidan's gaze bored into Marius once more. "Have you found your full sight yet, Marius?"

"No, master," Marius answered, bowing his head. In truth, in his heart he doubted he would ever be able to see as the others did. But he only lowered his head a moment, because he could hardly keep his gaze off the fel-scarred countenance of their beloved leader.

Illidan nodded but offered no commiseration, no reassurance. Coddling the weak was not Lord Illidan's way. He dropped his hand and his gaze flickered over Tehd once more. Then he moved on.

*

Later that week they were throwing down with cultists hiding in a cavern on the Broken Shore, mostly human, in a cult dedicated to some filthy, ultra-corrupt warlock named Kanrethad. Marius was separated from Tehd during the battle and once he defeated his shrieking and cursing opponents, running them through, decapitating them, disemboweling them, etc, he ran to find Tehd. The stink of guts and death wafted strong and oppressive through the caverns.

Tehd's trail wasn't hard to pick up, for as usual he'd left a trail of fel-burned corpses in his wake. Marius didn't know why he worried, for Tehd was more than capable of taking care of himself. Marius rounded a rock wall and froze, for Tehd was kneeling low with his face buried between a cultist's legs. At first Marius thought a sexual act was taking place, which was so insane (but then Tehd was so insane) he could hardly believe it. Then he realized what was actually happening--Tehd was _eating_ the person. Marius couldn't tell if the corpse was male or female. The reek of blood filled the air. And then Tehd looked up and saw him.

Marius took an involuntary step back. "You--"

Tehd clumsily rose and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. "I mentioned this to you the day we met," Tehd said. "And then I reiterated it again the next day just to make sure. Don't claim you didn't know."

"You're a _cannibal!_ " Marius screamed at him. "You really eat people? These are your own kind!"

"Yes, and? You agree they all had to die," Tehd said reasonably. "So what if they don't go to their pyre in pristine condition?"

"You don't even cook them!?" Marius screamed again, knowing it was irrational, but not able to stop himself.

"The fresh blood is good for my necromantic preservation. And it tastes wonderful. Sometimes you just crave a steak." Tehd emitted a long, rolling belch at an appalling volume, genteelly excused himself, then cocked his head. "Would cooking them make it better?"

"Why are you so evil," Marius groaned. During his demon hunter training, Marius had experienced visions that would drive battle-hardened old soldiers to the brink of insanity and beyond. He'd seen sights that would curdle milk and cause livestock to stampede to the death of the herd off a cliff. He'd beheld the unending, immortal armies of the Legion, which in itself was enough to shatter many an initiate's mind, and he'd taken a brief but haunting, sweating, rushing glimpse into the Void after the universe darkened once and forevermore. But this was too much. His lover was a dead thing who _ate people_. Marius staggered two steps backwards, turned, bent at the waist and vomited. Dimly he was aware of the sounds of flesh tearing and bone snapping behind him. 

Tehd came over to him and patted Marius' bare back with his fleshy hand. When Marius opened his eyelids and looked sideways, he saw Tehd was holding what looked to be a gnawed chunk of leg in his bone-hand. When Marius' tight braid tumbled and fell forward, Tehd pulled it up and held it out of the way of Marius' second torrent of stomach contents. "It's the first time I've been called upon to kill humans in months," Tehd said. "It's only an occasional indulgence. Won't you humor me?"

*

But perhaps unsurprisingly, Marius adjusted to this new information, as he had initially adjusted to the intrusion of Tehd in his life, as he'd adjusted to the ruination of his life by the Legion and the abject horrors of becoming a demon hunter. Marius was nothing if not resilient. For a couple of nights he avoided kissing Tehd, but then their life together resumed mostly as usual.

"You can't ever let anyone see you do that," Marius warned Tehd once he'd had some time to live with this new knowledge. Marius didn't think he needed to specify what he was talking about. "Any of the others would probably have killed you if they saw."

"They might have tried," Tehd corrected. "You've both seen and experienced for yourself how that works out."

Marius scowled. "I haven't decided if I ought to kill you myself. And you're right, I would take you by surprise."

"Same song, different day." Lying in profile on his back, Tehd looked like he was smiling. "And just when I was starting to feel so safe with you."

Passersby, Horde and Alliance troops, and free-wheeling adventurers had always taken an intense interest in Tehd, perhaps because he was so chatty. As Marius was never far away and most warlocks and demon hunters were careful not to associate with one another, strangers and new acquaintances often asked Marius about Tehd. Marius doubled down on his dark illuminations of Tehd's character after the cavern incident, answering with more solemnity than ever that Tehd was an evildoer, a villain, a corrupt miscreant. Marius distanced himself as much as possible, but because he was honest he continued to report that Tehd had saved his life on more than one occasion, and he generally went on to resignedly admit that he and Tehd were partners against the Legion, for good or ill, until the end.

Marius received credit for everything useful Tehd did, and Tehd was prodigious. His prowess with fel-portal magic was beyond any skill Marius had seen aside from Lord Illidan's, and Marius didn't mind accepting shared acclaim, because management of Tehd's lunacy and whims toward chaos was real work, and following him into reversed portals was a stunningly dangerous business. Besides, Tehd had gained a similar boost in reputation among his warlock peers from their mutual association. It was only fair.

Lord Illidan was extraordinarily pleased with the portal reversals they (Tehd) worked. Lord Illidan never addressed Tehd directly, but rather referred to him as 'your pet' and to the others, 'Marius' pet warlock.' The first time Lord Illidan said this phrase to his face, Marius felt heat rush to his cheeks. Masks were a good thing. Marius was never sorry he wore the full-veil mask. Of course Lord Illidan's vision was legendary and he could certainly see Marius' face right through the fabric.

*

Marius' sudden epiphany came about a week after the cannibalism incident, when he was sweaty atop Tehd after their nightly coupling. The sex was newly over, but Tehd's cool arms were curled loosely around Marius' back, and Marius remained sheathed inside Tehd's body, his breath still quickened, his heart beating with rapidity.

"Undeath is a curse. Say the word and I will free you from it," Marius blurted, feeling suddenly like he might cry (a biological impossibility of course, but the accompanying feeling could still arise), and abruptly, just like that, he realized he was in love with Tehd. In a way he was horrified at himself, but in another way, it made everything make sense.

Tehd let go of him. He slung an arm behind his head and a hand over his eyes and sighed exaggeratedly, like a maiden in a play. "A romantic, if completely thoughtless and also rude offer. And what a sense of timing you have! Get out of me right now."

"I mean it," Marius said, because he did. He withdrew from Tehd's body and shifted sideways onto the bedroll, and when he spoke he kept his voice hushed. "Do you suffer? You can't actually be enjoying an existence where you crave..." Marius didn't have the heart to finish the sentence.

Tehd made an exasperated noise. "You know, many Forsaken believe life is a disease. A disease I could readily cure you of. Only because I care about you, of course."

"I am serious," Marius told him.

"And I'm serious when I say I could still let Bheeghon eat you," Tehd huffed. Again he made the distinctive, impossible-to-forget clicking sound, slightly to one side, and Marius suddenly realized what the sound was--Tehd was tapping his fleshless thumb and fingertip bones together. "Or thigh meat, remember." Tehd pinched the skin below Marius' butt, then reached to lift up the mask and peer at him. "Too soon to joke about that?"

Marius shuddered, and he jerked his neck so the fabric of his mask was pulled from between Tehd's fingers. But he also noticed Tehd hadn't so much as called him a boor for his wrenching, heartfelt proposal.

Perhaps Tehd was softening on him too.


End file.
